The treatment of patients in hospitals and clinics usually involves the receipt by the patient of medical items. These items may include consumable items such as medications. Medical treatment may also involve other disposable items such as dressings and bandages or other medical equipment. Items implanted into the patient or used in conjunction with surgical procedures may also be used and consumed during the course of a patient's medical treatment. Examples of such items include splints, catheters or guide wires which are normally used during cardiac catheterization or angioplasty. To serve the needs of its patients, a clinic or hospital must always maintain sufficient stocks of these items on hand. Further, as medical items are often expensive, the charges associated with their use must be accurately billed to the patient.
Currently most systems for tracking inventory and use of medical equipment items in a hospital or clinic environment are largely manual systems. The persons responsible for maintaining an inventory of particular items must monitor the use of the items in each storage location within the hospital and order additional supplies when it is noted that the available stocks are running low. Often personnel are only familiar with the stocks available in a particular storage location and as a result, additional stocks may be ordered even though ample supplies are available elsewhere in the same facility.
Certain drugs used in the course of medical treatment are regulated narcotics. Supplies of such drugs must be kept in secure cabinets. Items may be dispensed from the secure cabinets only by two (2) authorized users accessing the material and certifying the manner in which it is used. The use of such narcotics also may require considerable paperwork which takes away valuable time that could be used for treating patients.
Some types of medical items must be maintained in refrigerated storage. Often such refrigerated storage must be maintained until almost the time of use. Keeping track of items that require refrigerated storage and assuring that adequate inventories of such items are always available presents additional challenges compared to medical items which do not require such special conditions. Due to the diverse types of medical items that may require storage in refrigerated conditions it is also difficult to selectively restrict access to such items.
The recording of medical items so that the patient may be billed for their use in the course of treatment is also largely a manual operation. The fact of use by the patient must be recorded in the patient's chart. In some cases items have peel-off labels that include a bar code that can be scanned and used for billing purposes. However, this still requires that the nurse or medical technician transfer the correct coding to the proper location for later billing.
Complications in billing become even greater when items are removed from inventory to accomplish a planned surgical procedure and then the items are not used. A patient may be charged for use of a particular item which is removed from inventory in anticipation of surgery. If during the surgery the item is not needed, a corresponding credit must be issued when the item is returned to stock. All of these activities take time away from persons who could otherwise devote their time to the treatment of patients. Such tracking and billing practices are also prone to inaccuracies which may cause the hospital or clinic to lose money or which may result in overbilling of the patient.
Thus there exists a need for an apparatus and system for monitoring and dispensing medical items in hospital or clinic environments that can more accurately monitor inventories, dispense medical items and correlate the use of medical items with the patient whose treatment has included their use. There further exists a need for a method and system for the restocking of medical items in such a system that provides more accurate, convenient and secure movement of medical items from a pharmacy or other location where medical items are prepared, to the locations where the medical items are taken for use by patients.